@prologic@twtxt.net That was it, now it all works again.

@prologic@twtxt.net even here, in this Yarn, I click “Edit” on my message, or “Reply” on yours, I am still getting this:

Just throwing this out there, but does the edit, delete and reply feature work for any of you, through the website? I can only Yarn. Trying to do those other actions, generates a popup, asking me if I trust some # URL thing. Confirming it refreshes the site, without doing the thing.

@prologic@twtxt.net There are many other examples, centered around how the “enshitification” of their services, negatively impacts everyone: G-Mail randomly blacklisting small e-mail servers, resulting in e-mails ending in some Google void they can’t be retrieved out of (unlike the spam folder); their proprietary Android phone app, mislabelling phone numbers of legitimate businesses, as spam calls and warning people not to pick up; their incompetence in SEO filtering, enabling AI generated adware websites, to be shown above legitimate results.

Roses are red, violets are blue,
Why devs hate Google, and so should you?

Google ☠️ The cloud

Google Drive vs their own API: Many of us developers, go out of our way to support Google Drive in our apps, programs and websites, to make things easier for users, but over the years, Google keeps making it harder and in some cases demanding “solutions”, that conveniently involve us paying their partners:
$Our Android app is frozen in carbonite
$End of the road for Google Drive and Transmit

Google ☠️ The Internet

Google OAuth vs the Canidae browser: Users interested in testing my CEF (Chromium Embedding Framework) browser, back when the project still existed, were prohibited from passing Google OAuth in my and any other CEF browser, unless they changed their user agent string. I managed to contact Google and was told this was a necessary protection against bad actors. As we all know, no bad actor would ever add two lines of code, to change the user agent of their malware.

Google vs the point of SSL: Google Chrome presents all sites access over HTTPS as secure and all sites accessed over HTTP as dangerous. This is very misleading to less educated Internet users, falling for “secure” phishing sites with SSL certificates and avoiding “dangerous” static webpages, that never needed one.

Google ☠️ Android apps

Googles friends vs FOSS
developers: X and other big social media platforms running their own servers, are allowed to host seemingly any user generated content, while Google forces us, developers helping to maintain XMPP clients for Android, to exclude features, that allow our users to discover chatrooms, that anyone can host on their servers. We are thus not only held responsible for what we publish, what we host, but also for the whole XMPP network. I offer my version of the client, unrestricted, on my website, others choose their repo or F-droid.

I share that opinion, but sadly advertisers were completely spoiled, over the years of social media companies bowing down to them. Even if unethical ways of targeting ads were banned, I assume the websites would get paid less.

Now when the pockets of many investors also dried up and they won’t just infinitely pump billions of dollars into an empty promise of mysterious grand future returns (unless AI is involved), sites would have no options, other than squeeze that cash, out of their users.

I know community donations exist, but they’re a model unsustainable for bigger sites and less dedicated communities - furthermore the more sites start begging for donations, the less money there will be to split among them.

The only option that remains, is paid subscriptions and microtransactions, that are already way out of hand, on many sites and I can’t even imagine how hard those would be pushed, if their finances got worse.

I would recommend watching at least the very end of this video, as it explains, how Meta funds “independent advocacy groups”, to fight government regulation, disguised as some social good, open-source, equality, freedom, whatever…

Time for the annual profile picture change. 😅
Second pixelart I drew this year, expecting my least active artist award soon! 💪🏆

@lyse@lyse.isobeef.org it’s just a meme comic edit, so no need to worry. 😄 I experimented with it a bit at the beginning, where the images were extremely flawed, but that uniqueness was what I found appealing. Now most of it looks the same and I lost what little interest I had in it to begin with.

The Facebook Messenger Android app user experience:

1. App fails to update, so you have to reinstall it.
   
2. You login and have to accept all the bullish terms of service again.
   
3. The loading wheel gets stuck so you have to restart the app and do it all a second time.
   
4. It tries to download your language and fails, so you have to click “download again” and wait for the app to slowly crunch everything together.
   
5. Now you can finally use the fucking webapp.

@prologic@twtxt.net I’m not sure. I never had an Apple device and when this app was briefly broken by Android updates, I sadly wasn’t able to find any good alternative, other than emulating an older version of Android, until a fix came out.

It does worry me a little, because it is this one developer hobby project, that is not opensource, that my ability to properly draw pixelart, relies upon.

@prologic@twtxt.net if you go into the “ART menu” and click /pixel-art/, you get the main folder, where it can all be browsed by file names, but currently without a preview.

If you want more of a gallery thing, check out the backup sites listed under it (also in the “ART menu”, of the main site). Currently you can choose between NextCloud, Gdrive, OneDrive and TeraBox - NextCloud is probably the most accessible option.

@prologic@twtxt.net Thank you. I’m using Pixel Station. I can’t recommend it enough for this kind of pixelart, but it’s only available for Android.

The first and hopefully not last thing I drew this year (drawn yesterday). Kinda minimalistic and Scribble Kibble inspired.

@bender@twtxt.net Idk, it’s gotten to a point, where there is probably 3 or 4 completely different versions of MS Teams. I was on thr Windows version 1.7.00.3653, when the pop-up appeared and now after forcing the downgrade, I’m back on that version again.

The reason, why I demand to be able to continue using this version, is because the one they’re trying to force onto everyone, is not only still janky, but also missing crucial features. Part of my job, is being able to quickly communicate things, in multiple languages. The old version supports that, because it can figure out the language you’re currently using and automatically check the spelling for that language. The new version, only lets you choose one language and does not even support the language, that I use the most. I could probably get the support for that language working, but it would require admins to install language packs, to every machine I use and me going through the settings, every time I need it, to spellcheck the other language.

@prologic@twtxt.net The best part is, that since it is the business version of Teams, they still have to give you the option, to opt-out of this update. To do so, you just have to:

1. Agree to this nonsense and let the app update itself
   
2. Click around the new version for a bit
   
3. Click your profile picture in the top right corner
   
4. Uncheck the “use new version” thingy
   
5. Confirm your choice
   
6. Let the app downgrade itself

Thank you, for giving us a choice Microsoft

People who fight against the use of privacy frontends and bridges, to relay publicly available information, should be mocked for their stupidity. This applies to both salty Twitter bros/YouTubers, fighting it, because they feel entitled to pennies from advertisers and Fediblock jannies, deathly afraid someone using another protocol and a bridge, might read their shit takes and be able to add their opinion, into the discussion.

I’m not in favor of scraping content and/or profiting from it, but that’s something completely different. Especially when it comes to frontends, you’re not entitled to an opt-out - that’s not how that technology works.

The original it is based on:
https://twitter.com/shadmbrooks/status/1755367436873073135

Just an AI generated copypasta, based on an already very pretentious X/Twitter post:

*I asked it to somehow make it even more pretentious

@lyse@lyse.isobeef.org their crawler does not read the robots txt and to my knowledge, neither do any other AI crawlers. As always, they considered themselves exempt, from everything they find inconvenient.

@mckinley@twtxt.net @prologic@twtxt.net Yes, I agree the website itself sucks and the company behind it is incompetent at best - even more so, with their other websites.

Their first site (haveibeentrained.com) was offering a way to search through all the training datasets, not realizing, they were full of illegal porn - so it was quickly shut down.

Now their main gimmick is offering a browser extension, that lets you see what data on any given site you visit, was used for AI training, what has already been marked as “opted out” and a way to add your stuff, to that list.

I don’t like that idea either, adding URLs to a list, should not require questionable browser extensions and in general, opting out all the places that might have your images, doesn’t seem worth the time, if the companies, don’t even have to respect this request.

If you just want the txt file, without additional nonsense, feel free to take the default one, that I use here: https://thecanine.ueuo.com/ai.txt and use or edit it, to match your needs.

Those of you who have your own sites, might want to give this a quick look: https://spawning.ai/ai-txt

It’s just a text file, similar to robots.txt, but for AI crawlers, rather than search engine ones. Probably not very effective, as of now, but at least it’s a way to make it clear you don’t conset to your site being used for AI training, without making it suck for human users, in the process.

I’ll have to disappoint you, not properly joining the Christmas profile picture thing, for the second year in the row.

This year in fact countering it, with a profile picture wearing sunglasses. Hopefully at least the Australian users, have my back with this one.

@lyse@lyse.isobeef.org In this one, the uniform is generic, with a very subtle reference to the Czech flag, on the hat pin.

In the first ever picture of him wearing a uniform, he was wearing some kind of a WWII German airman one:

Neither can be considered his war attire of choice. That title would likely go to this stupid combination of a gold and silver spiked black bandanna, yellow decorated leather jacket, green belt with a heart shaped buckle and a white shirt with a burning tree.

Mythological canines aren’t exactly known for reasonable fashion/war attire. 😅

@prologic@twtxt.net No, though some people call him “Jim”, based oh how some of my image files were named, at one point. There were other suggestions (most also beginning with the letter “J”), but this is probably the best one.

A thing from start of this month, that I never posted here:

@iolfree@iolfree Good to know, but if you want to avoid them completely, use either a good front-end (Invideous/Piped), or install the uBlock Origin extension.

ReVanced (or forks of it), NewPipe, GrayJay, VueTube,… can do the trick on mobile.

Mondays sometimes really do be like:

The face of a someone, removed from leading two separate Internet communication protocols/platforms. Here is to many more!

There is not many designers I follow and even less, who I follow ironically. One of them is Peter Arnell, the guy I “admire”, for being able to create stupid shit, write even stupider explanations and sell it to companies, for tens, if not hundreds of millions of dollars.

In 2008, his group designed the very logo, that Pepsi used until now and justified its greatness, by 27 pages of the dumbest shit ever put on paper, that I sometimes quote to this day. Sadly all great things, must come to an end.After 15 years of small changes, Pepsi decided, to get rid of the logo completely, along with making their garbage drink, even more unhealthy and pushing the allegedly cancer causing sugar-free version.

I will never have a proper Arnell logo for myself, along with the book of nonsense, that you get with one - especially not after writing this and considering, I probably won’t make that much money, during my entire life. Still in the spirit of great graphical genius Peter Arnell, I humbly submit one sketch of my current logo, with added nonsense, that completely fails to rival his.

If you have any logos, or want to try doing this, with anything I ever drew, please do it now and send me the results - might the spirit of the Arnell design process, never die!

Omg! I’m always playing on those pixel placing canvases, where it’s usually an endless war of factions or just things being attacked for no reason, but now someone did the most wholesome thing imaginable and drew another inugami facing mine and drew them shaking paws.

It’s not going to stay free for too long. GitHub is going to start charging 10$/month per user for personal licenses and double that price, for every corporate employee - source

They also already announced Copilot 365, priced at an even more ridiculous 30$/month/user, for the corpo customers, that 365 package applies to - source

The recommendations page be like:

@abucci@anthony.buc.ci I’m never too serious about code theft, because as developers, we all do a little copying and pasting from SO, or smashing the keyboard, until the code works somehow. Despite that, it’s still bullshit, that this was targeting all the open-source developers, who did not consent and probably also violating all kinds of open-source licenses in the process, yet at the end, it’s the proprietary developers and companies, who profit the most from it, despite contributing nothing, or the bare minimum.

@prologic@twtxt.net Depends, if it can fix the Yarn app.

SOFTWARE DEVELOPMENT
cons:
It takes work
Pros:
Now you get to be the one, sitting in the dark, drinking beer, blasting loud indie music through headphones, writing the edgy READ ME.txt files, you’ve seen included with things, you downloaded as a kid.

@lyse@lyse.isobeef.org It’s a meme template :D

Oh god, If I don’t repent for my sins and end up in hell - I’m pretty sure part of my punishment will be having to watch the Discord soydevs, attempt to program an Android file picker in RN, for all of eternity - as it will never be accomplished. All while I scream at them in pure agony, far greater than the one caused by my skin melting in lava.

You have to have a photo (cannot be an image, even if the extension is the same) in a specific directory, taken by the phones camera, for this file picker to function. How is code this bad even possible, unless it’s on purpose.

@prologic@twtxt.net Looks like yet another one of those scams, where a custom version of Chat GPT (machine learning at best, in no way even close to real AI), is shoved into a human-shaped torso and presented as FutureBot5000.

Still kinda sad how guy 1, had to invent a woman shaped and voiced android, to have something resembling a woman, he can yell “shut up” at. 😂

@prologic@twtxt.net I really don’t think so, as even Googles attempts to filter out content inappropriate for children failed miserably. As far as I know, the only front-end that even comes anywhere close to your requirements is Invideous, but unless you’re willing to give up child filers and see some trending, you’d probably have to fork it and change quite a few things.

Yes, disabling any and all notifications and sounds is an absolute must.

The Discord app itself used to be at least usable, long before all their stupid redesigns, rewrites, additions no-one asked for and new monetization gimmicks.

DEATH TO INCOMPETENT REACT REWRITES

Well I might be partly biased, because it is the platform, where I’m by far the most popular and one where my bot development and art started. They even reserved “@thecanine” for me.

Still all I wish them is the Skype future and most users moving to better alternatives, like Revolt.chat.

I just got the Windows 11 update, that adds the new folders, volume bar design and some other “features”. I don’t even know how many people have it now, or what kind of an update it was, but I thought it looked alright and didn’t mind it, until Microsoft tried to sneak all the bloatware I spent a day+ removing back in, through some background process, I luckily noticed and quickly destroyed.

@abucci@anthony.buc.ci Now we finally know what you look like and that you’re insane - getting your bachelors in math. 🥴

@bender@twtxt.net You’re the first person, to ever tell me that. I was testing the last minor rewrite, along with my friend from US, who had no trouble accessing it and all of my US VPN IPs connect too.

After the recent move, the site is now most likely hosted in the DFW Datacenter, located within the US. That’s not anything new either, as despite being European, I think the vast majority of my stuff, runs somewhere on your continent.

If this isn’t just some temporary outage, you might have to contact your ISP and demand a working service. I’m still checking here, but it doesn’t look like there’s any problems on my end.

@prologic@twtxt.net That is unfortunate, but it probably applies to all heavily pixelated fonts, so if you’re aiming for that aesthetic, you don’t have a more accessible choice.

I only use those fonts on my website, where this issue can be mitigated, by turning off external fonts (in the browser settings), or using a screen reader.

This is not a perfect solution, but knowing that, I try to keep screen reader compatibility a high priority, during site rewrites. Along with making sure, the site looks alright, with the usual default browser fonts.

If anyone remembers my rant, about the strange Club Penguin sequel, that requested very personal information and documents for verification - it somehow got even stranger. I got a couple more e-mails from them, trying to get me to finish my registration, before I set my spam filter, to get rid of future reminders.

For some reason completely beyond my understanding, after a few months passed, their system just automatically assumed that I went through with it and sent me the following e-mail, congratulating me for doing so:

Sure enough, this is not just a “rogue mail server” and my account just somehow works now, without any of the requested info.

I off-course did the responsible thing, clicked the big yellow button and downloaded the apk file onto my primary phone, installed it and gave it the requested permission, to install other things. It installed the promised Club Penguin sequel “Party Parrot World”, that still despite being a separate thing, could only be launched through the original app, that was called “Hideaway”.

To cut it “short”, it is a “technically functional multiplayer game”, in the loosest definition of all those words. It barely even loads and clicking almost anything breaks it. I have only seen a glimpse of one other player for a second, so I’m not even sure, it wasn’t some NPC, missplaced there by one of the many present bugs. Lastly there just wasn’t anything to do, besides walking around, going through the buggy menu, that usually broke the “game”, so much it had to be relaunched, or trying to find “minigames”, that either said coming soon, or were not playable on mobile.

I might still return to this thing down the line, out of pure curiosity, but a masterpiece it is not.

@adi@twtxt.net That one is also nice, but not all too pixely. Don’t even know if I’d consider it a pixelated font, rather than just a “low resolution looking” one. 🤔